June 28, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 12, 1428

LAHORE, June 27: Accusing the authorities concerned of showing negligence in handling the natural calamity which caused colossal loss of life and damage to property in Karachi, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has demanded the government should provide full relief to the victims, mostly impoverished.

At least 250 people died in the rainstorm which hit Karachi this Saturday.

An HRCP press statement issued on Wednesday said though preventing a disaster was beyond human capacity, the fact remained that many of the deaths could have been avoided through better panning and timely action.

“HRCP is convinced the colossal damage to houses and the huge loss of life is largely a consequence of official indifference to the situation in which most citizens live, a lack of disaster readiness and poor relief efforts.”

It said most victims of the storm were impoverished people who lived in inadequate houses that offered minimal protection.

Quoting official estimates, it said every third house in katchi abadi of Orangi, which housed many of Karachi’s poorest people, had been damaged by the natural calamity. And those whose houses were reduced to heaps of mud and timber reported no official assistance, it regretted.

Allowing giant billboards that claimed so many lives in Karachi was scandalous, as were the inadequacies of a power-supply mechanism which collapsed almost entirely in the wake of 45-minute storm leaving most karachiites without electricity for hours and even days, the release added.

Referring to the chaos that prevailed in Karachi after the storm and the panic across coastal areas generated by the cyclone warning, the HRCP said it belied government claims made after October 2005 earthquake about disaster readiness.

It demanded expansion of speedy relief to the victims and setting up an independent body in Sindh and Balochistan to assess damage on the spot and identify the factors behind it.